About Mp3/Wma; Terminology - Alpine CDE-W235BT Owner's Manual

About MP3/WMA

CAUTION
Except for private use, duplicating audio data (including MP3/
WMA data) or distributing, transferring, or copying it, whether
for free or for a fee, without permission of the copyright holder is
strictly prohibited by the Copyright Act and by international
treaty.
What is MP3?
MP3, whose official name is "MPEG Audio Layer 3," is a compression
standard prescribed by the ISO, the International Standardization
Organization and MPEG which is a joint activity institution of the IEC.
MP3 files contain compressed audio data. MP3 encoding is capable of
compressing audio data at extremely high ratios, reducing the size of
music files to as much as one-tenth their original size. This is achieved
while still maintaining near CD quality. The MP3 format realizes such
high compression ratios by eliminating the sounds that are either
inaudible to the human ear or masked by other sounds.
What is WMA?
™
WMA, or "Windows Media Audio, " is compressed audio data.
WMA is similar to MP3 audio data.
Method for creating MP3/WMA files
Audio data is compressed using software with MP3/WMA codecs. For
details on creating MP3/WMA files, refer to the user's manual for that
software.
MP3/WMA files that are playable on this device have the file extensions
"mp3" / "wma". Files with no extension cannot be played back (WMA
ver. 7.1, 8 and 9 are supported).
Supported playback sampling rates and bit rates
MP3
Sampling rates: 48 kHz, 44.1 kHz, 32 kHz, 24 kHz, 22.05 kHz, 16 kHz,
12 kHz, 11.025 kHz, 8 kHz
Bit rates: 8 - 320 kbps
WMA
Sampling rates: 48 kHz, 44.1 kHz, 32 kHz
Bit rates: 32 - 192 kbps
This device may not play back correctly depending on sampling rates.
ID3 tags/WMA tags
This device supports ID3 tag v1 and v2, and WMA tag.
If tag data is in an MP3/WMA file, this device can display the title (track
title), artist name, and album name ID3 tag/WMA tag data.
This device can only display single-byte alphanumeric characters (up to
30 for ID3 tags and up to 15 for WMA tags) and the underscore. For
non-supported characters, "NO SUPPORT" is displayed.
If information contains characters other than ID3 tag information, the
audio file may not be played back.
The tag information may not be correctly displayed, depending on the
contents.
Producing MP3/WMA discs
MP3/WMA files are prepared, and then written to a CD-R or CD-RW
using CD-R writing software. A disc can hold up to 509 files/folders
(including Root Folders), and the maximum number of folders is 255.
Playback may not be performed if a disc exceeds the limitations
described above.
Media supported
The media that this device can play back are CD-ROMs, CD-Rs, and
CD-RWs.
Corresponding File Systems
This device supports discs formatted with ISO9660 Level 1 or Level 2.
Under the ISO9660 standard, there are some restrictions to remember.
The maximum nested folder depth is 8 (including the root directory).
The number of characters for a folder/file name is limited.
Valid characters for folder/file names are letters A-Z (all caps), numbers
0-9, and '_' (underscore).
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This device also can play back discs in Joliet, Romeo, etc., and other
standards that conform to ISO9660. However, sometimes the file
names, folder names, etc., are not displayed correctly.
Formats supported
This device supports CD-ROM XA, Mixed Mode CD, Enhanced CD
(CD-Extra) and Multi-Session.
This device cannot correctly play back discs recorded with Track At
Once or packet writing.
Order of files
Files are played back in the order that the writing software writes them
to the disc. Therefore, the playback order may not be what is expected.
Verify the writing order in the software's documentation. The playback
order of the folders and files is as follows.
Root folder
Folder
The folder No./ folder Name will not be displayed if no file is contained
in the folder.

Terminology

Bit rate
This is the "sound" compression rate specified for encoding. The higher
the bit rate, the higher the sound quality, but also the larger the files.
Sampling rate
This value shows how many times per second the data is sampled
(recorded). For example, music CDs use a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz, so
the sound is sampled (recorded) 44,100 times per second. The higher
the sampling rate, the higher the sound quality, but also the larger the
volume of data.
Encoding
Converting music CDs, WAVE (AIFF) files, and other sound files into the
specified audio compression format.
Tag
Song information such as track titles, artist names, album names, etc.,
written into MP3/WMA files.
Root folder
The root folder (or root directory) is found at the top of the file system.
The root folder contains all folders and files. It is created automatically
for all burned discs.
MP3/WMA File